CHAPTER 5

The Marvin Riley Personal Transformation Story

Marvin Riley is the CEO of EnPro Industries. Before joining EnPro, Marvin was an executive with General Motors, working within the General Motors Vehicle Manufacturing Group where he held multiple positions of increasing responsibility from 1997 to 2007.

Marvin completed the Advanced Management Program (AMP) at the Harvard Business School and has an MBA degree from Johns Hopkins University and a BS in electrical engineering from Howard University. He has served on the board of directors of TimkenSteel since August 2018.

Marvin and I first connected in the late fall of 2014 when I received a call from him wanting to talk about my Learn or Die book. Marvin has a fascinating American Dream story, as you will read. But what is so interesting to me and I believe will be to you is Marvin’s candor and vulnerability in sharing his story of how “that” Marvin became the “new” Marvin.

As you read his story, please reflect on WHY Marvin undertook his transformation journey, WHAT about himself he wanted to change, and HOW he went about it.

Here is Marvin’s story in his own words. I hope you enjoy it as much as I do. Please read slowly and “make meaning” of his story. If you do that, I know it will connect with you in your own personal way.

My Beginning

I remember the damp cold air and never feeling warm. I remember the constant desperation attempts to pay the water bill or the electricity light bill. I remember never having money to go on field trips and being left behind. I remember playing tackle football on the grass field with the concrete sidewalk running through the field. I remember being burglarized by the neighbors in the apartment downstairs. I remember drugs being sold about three houses down from mine. I remember always checking behind me when I was walking home. I remember the chilling seriousness of my mother’s voice and the dry callousness of my father’s hands. I remember everything was loud: the music, the voices, the cars, and the sirens. These memories are so much more than memories. These memories are building blocks for who I grew to become.

This environment shaped me and, in many ways, this environment is and was me. My mental models were and are still influenced every single day by this foundation.

It’s not safe

Life is hard

Trust no one

Be tough and be ready

Hustle to get yours

Watch your back

It’s survival of the fittest

These phrases are what I told myself each and every day. Unfortunately, this didn’t fade when I grew out of my youth, it has been the multidecade fuel to prove that I was good enough, smart enough, and worthy. I wanted to achieve my way out of everything that surrounded me. Manage the distractions coming from every direction and achieve. I remember when I broke the high school rushing record in football, I didn’t even tell my parents. I literally didn’t care as it was just another achievement. I just wanted to get to the next game so I could keep on grinding.

I was fiercely independent and on my own mission to change my condition. I decided that nothing was going to stop me from achieving and all I had to do was continue to work hard, trust no one, and put achievement-based points on the board. This was the also the period in my life where I decided that I had to find my own way, I had to do it all by myself.

Things really changed for me when my best friend and college roommate was shot multiple times by an active shooter at a house party we both attended. My roommate didn’t die although another student did and others were severely injured. It was a harsh reminder that life was hard and could be snatched from me in an instant. This incident permanently changed me and it also destroyed my calibration. My ladder of inference was now hijacked by extreme distrust and equating difficult situations with potential loss of life. This made me very intense and very impatient. It also made me see everything through the lens of fear.

My Ego Loved Winning

Upon graduation from undergrad, I moved away to work where I had no previous attachments and I never wanted to stop working. I focused heavily on being productive and learning everything that I could about everything. This work ethic was rewarded by the company and I was promoted several times. I was also rewarded because I was intense and impatient. My surroundings just fed my ego and affirmed all of my bad habits.

I was promoted to the point where I was leading people and my intensity was always on display. I had no problem confronting you if your department was falling behind. I also had no problem doing this in front of other people. It was about hitting the numbers and literally nothing else. I would even insert myself to solve a problem or physically do something to keep our production going to hit the numbers. Over time I became more fun to be around; however, you never wanted to be on the other side of me if you missed your numbers. It was not going to end well regardless of why. It was winner take all, and my ego loved winning.

My parents never raised me this way, and deep inside I always felt like something was incongruent. As my parents weren’t college educated, I never really looked to them for advice once I left home for college. I decided that I had to figure everything out on my own. I also felt like my approach was working because I was being promoted and recognized for my behavior. I wasn’t smart enough to know that the deep values about human connection exhibited by my parents transcended any school-based education. I have many memories of times where I showed absolutely no empathy. My default mode for myself and everyone was to suck it up and work harder.

My Pivotal Moment

It wasn’t until the time of the financial crisis that I realized that I needed to change. I knew deep inside that my intensity and lack of empathy was misguided. After laying off many people in multiple factories across multiple countries, I realized something important. I realized that the people who were closest to me had also lost touch with their feelings and also lacked empathy.

My realization happened on a beautiful summer day in Paris when I was walking up the Champs-Elysées toward the Arc de Triomphe. I stood at the circle of the Arc de Triomphe and just watched the cars as they entered and exited the circle around the monument. It looked a little like my life, which could easily be described as organized chaos. I then noticed something very important. More cars were being allowed to enter the circle from certain streets than others. This was in many ways a mirror of my life. I realized then and there that I only allowed tough minded, sport loving, technical people into my circle. If you loved engineering, you were in, and if you loved marketing, you were out. If you loved football, you were in, but if you loved painting, you were out. This was the perfect place to put me right up against my edge because the French didn’t watch American football and they love art.

This moment was a pivotal moment in my life. I realized that I had surrounded myself with people who confirmed what I already believed, cared more about tangible things than the people who produced those things, and were completely “me” focused. I basically realized that I surrounded myself with mirror images of myself, and I didn’t really like myself anymore.

This time away from my own echo chamber allowed me to reflect and examine my worldview.

This self-examination and self-awareness didn’t happen in Paris by accident.

During this time frame I had recently completed a 360-feedback process and two transformational leadership programs and I began to experiment with meditation. Without making a conscious choice, I had subconsciously set myself on a course of deep introspection and deep personal transformation. I began to journal, and I began to intentionally seek out people who were different from me in every way.

I realized that these individuals were so full and so much more in touch with reality than me. I realized that there was something deep inside of me that was really hurting. I began listening to the same music that my parents would play in my house as a child. Spirit-filled reggae music with positive lyrics like that of Bob Marley. I remember constantly repeating Marley’s lyrics: “Emancipate yourself from mental slavery, none but ourselves can free our minds.”

Freeing Myself

I began to read everything I could find on human development and human transformation. I began seeking out people who cared about a common humanity and wanted to be a force for deep love and deep care in the world. I wanted to work in a new way and I wanted to live in a new way.

During one of my staff meetings I read every word that was said to me in my 360 feedback out loud to everyone. It was hard, it was emotional, and I could hardly hold back the tears. I committed to everyone there that I would change and that I wanted their support to hold me accountable.

I sought mentorship from my CEO at the time, as he had done extensive work in this area. Luckily, he saw something in me and agreed to support my development. It started with raw unfiltered feedback that I needed to hear. He introduced me to many people who were experts in the field, and he took his personal time to teach me about self-awareness.

I then began to practice by using work as the raw material to develop myself. When I saw someone in a meeting make a face, I checked in to see what they were thinking. If they disagreed with me, I put a little space between hearing their point of view and my reflective defensiveness, which was my immediate go-to in the beginning. I began wanting everyone to experience the new me, and I wanted everyone who worked for me to treat their employees differently.

I wanted to scale this new way of relating to people, but I lacked the social technology to scale what I was doing. My CEO was leading a transformation that was about the individual, and we both saw a gap in the ability to scale the work beyond the individual level.

After a multiday solo experience in nature, I came back with an open awareness but also more conviction to find a way to scale the transformation work that was changing me from the inside out. During my time in nature I realized that people simply work better and show up differently when the leader sets the field with positivity and psychological safety. I didn’t have the language for it then, but I knew it at a tacit level.

One morning while watching CNBC, I heard Ray Dalio talking about an idea meritocracy and I heard about a book called Learn or Die. This book sounded like something similar to the work we had been doing, but it was different. It seemed to have the essential elements of how to build practices into our daily work. This book, he said, also had the details of what an idea meritocracy was all about.

I downloaded the Learn or Die book and drove to get my car hand-washed. As this process normally takes an hour, I walked over to Starbucks to grab a coffee. A few hours later my phone was ringing repeatedly as if there was an emergency. I completely forgot about my car while reading Learn or Die and was completely engulfed in reading and journaling about how I would implement an idea meritocracy in my business unit.

Creating the Perfect Workplace

I wanted everyone to be in a psychologically safe work environment. I wanted to fill the workday with positivity, and I wanted everyone to feel competent in what they were doing. I really wanted everyone to connect, relate, and collaborate, but most importantly I wanted everyone to adopt the phrase “I am not my idea.” I needed to adopt this more than anyone as I didn’t want anyone to just adopt my bad ideas because I was the boss, and I wanted everyone to feel comfortable to challenge everyone’s critical thinking so we can always get to the best idea.

Since reading that book, I have been on a mission to create the perfect workplace.

I want everyone to practice behaviors that evidence being open-minded, mindful, actively listening, courageous, curious, and collaborative.

I want everyone to feel psychologically safe to be exactly who they are in the world.

I believe everyone comes into this world already perfect and should feel that way at work.

I have been maintaining my daily meditation practice because I also notice that I’m the single biggest impediment to achieving this work environment. During my developmental journey I learned that the leader caps the developmental level of the organization, and as Leo Tolstoy says, “Everyone thinks of changing the world, but no one thinks of changing himself.”

One Marvin

During my process of building a better workplace, I have also been building a more integrated life. My life outside of work has really evolved to me being more and more of the same person inside and outside of the workplace. I view this as an important and critical step in the journey. Fully releasing my desired and dreaded images by bringing my life together as one evolving unit. I’m more vulnerable at home now when before I felt like I needed to always be stern and firm.

Quite frankly, my vulnerability has given me more freedom to be who I wanted to be all along. I consider myself to be a work in process; however, I am acknowledging my need to be a better listener and more empathic.

I have developed daily standardized work to hold myself accountable to practicing what I say I want to become. I have found transformation is hard and requires tremendous rigor and discipline. Some of my daily and weekly standardized work includes:

• Exercise (aerobic and anaerobic)

• Daily meditation

• Journaling

• Intentional practice of inquiry versus advocacy

• Expressing gratitude

• Active constructive response

• Behavioral self-assessment: open-mindedness, curiosity, listening, humility, mindfulness, collaboration, courageousness, empathy

• Daily reading (nonfiction and fiction to improve perspective taking)

My standardized work will not work for everyone, but it is how I hold myself accountable. This is maintained primarily on a checklist that I review and update to see how I’m doing. My plan going forward is to build my own database in order to improve the quality of my thinking and being.

Love and Purpose

My changes allow access to people from the side streets who previously weren’t allowed to enter. They feel welcome to enter my life and they feel welcome to enrich my life. I smile when someone challenges my thinking and holds me accountable for who I’m working to become. This has been very hard for me but very rewarding. The most rewarding has been me realizing what my parents were trying to teach me all along. All that matters is love. Lead with love and be a beacon for love and kindness in all situations.

As I think about my purpose and my work in this world, I try to anchor on my noble goal. My noble goal is to provide access to higher education and development for underprivileged individuals. My life has been a journey of greater education and development and I want this for everyone. No one should be denied the ability to live into the highest and truest expression of themselves because of their circumstance or from being denied access to greater knowledge.

I hope my story can be helpful to someone who wants more out of life and wants more for everyone around them each and every day. I also hope my daily and weekly practices will provide insight into the rigor and discipline I’ve used even if the practices themselves may not be ideal for everyone.

Go take on the world. It’s waiting for new leaders every day.

Do you remember that Marvin stated that his goal was to build the perfect workplace? A workplace where every individual has the opportunity to bring his or her Best Self to work and to develop his or her abilities to do meaningful, purposeful work?

We now are going to move to part 2 of the book, which is about a New Way of Working and Humanizing the Workplace. Together we are going to explore the meaning of a “perfect workplace.”

My guess is that many of you are thinking, “I am not a CEO like Marvin. I can’t change my workplace.” Yes, and. . . .

Many of you are probably leaders of teams or organizational groups or units or functional areas or leaders of geographies or products or services or subsidiaries. Why can’t you change how your group or team works?

And many of you are members of teams and have influence. Why not try to influence your team leader to adopt new ways of working that will enhance team performance?